Memories
by Commander Zia
Summary: He lies in bed and lets it all wash over him. The confusion, the hopelessness, the clarity, the pain. The memories.


**A/N: **Originally meant to be part of a longer oneshot consisting of different characters I deem 'crazy' in their own way and the moments they reached the peak of insanity (I planned for Sasuke and Shikamaru, maybe Kakashi. Who knows, I still may get around to it sometime). Anyways, my theme for Ibiki was 'memories.' While other characters may incorporate their past guilts and fears into present day, such as Kakashi (His being late, talking to the dead in his head), I felt Ibiki would look back on the past in memories that got brought up by related present-day topics. This would especially be true during this time frame, i.e. right post-rescue.

On a side note, everything I write Ibiki-wise is now AU because of that one (two?) panel of teenage Ibiki Kishi gave us last chapter. Ibiki had one scar missing during that frame, the one I _always_ give him with the rest of his scars (on the left side of his face from the top down), and he was way old. I enjoy torturing a younger Ibiki. Ah well, basically all I write these days is AU anyways.

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**M** e m o r i e s

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He lies in bed and lets it all wash over him. The confusion, the hopelessness, the clarity, the pain.

The memories.

"Ibiki?"

The voice comes from somewhere in front of him along with the soft double-click of a door opening and closing.

He doesn't answer. His throat hurts too much to speak, and it wasn't as if he had anything to say. At any rate his voice was out of practice. These last too many days he hadn't done any talking, hadn't done anything but sobbed and screamed and, a couple times near the end, laughed.

"It's time to change your bandages. How is the pain?"

What did she think?

He doesn't answer but turns in her direction as she comes into view, the pink of her shirt under her uniform sparking a flash-

_-and the man is crouching against the wall, gasping for breath as though every single one was his last. In, out, in out. His pink hair cascades down to his shoulders, it's messy and wild and dirty and it hangs over his stunningly calm green eyes._

"_Ibiki." He speaks low and quickly, there is a panic in his voice that he'd never heard before and he would have answered if not for the rag still stuffed so far into his mouth he's gagging."Don't you tell them anything. I'm proud of you Ibiki, more than you could ever know, you can do this-"_

_His eyes widen as the blade is stabbed deep into his gut. The tall man smiles as the pinkette chokes and red splashes across the stone floor. He sags, his hands catching in the chains as his knees hit the ground with a sickening thud-_

-of memory that he forces down.

Her hands are cold against his bare chest as she begins to lift the long pads of gauze taped loosely to his chest, so they can be removed without any twisting or turning. As air hits the cuts and bruises he may have hissed in pain, if he hadn't felt worse a hundred times over already too many times to count.

"You're doing well…" She speaks in what are supposed to be low, comforting tones, but through the paper-thin, sickening tone he can hear her exhaustion and annoyance. Maybe she had an annoying boyfriend, just like everyone else seemed to have. Hota had had a boyfriend once, but even Hachi had known-

"_-fell down the stairs, I'm not lying!"_

_They all stare at her because the bruise on her cheek is far more hand-shaped than she'd like to admit. It's alarming to see their Hota, the girl who held back tears when she'd felt her wrists snapped as easily as twigs, the girl who shouted all three of them up and down Konoha for being late, dominated like this._

_Hachi narrows his white eyes, a rare sight. "Is this Fura again?"_

_Even he can catch the wince. "What are you-"_

-that he was a bad egg.

With a rip another bandage comes off and more cracking skin hits the air with a sting. He can feel the crusted scabs, the burn marks left by the simple, circular brand the man had been so fond of using. He'd used red-hot kunai plenty of times as well, and on occasion just open flames, when he thought about it that man-

"_-you ever going to tell us what you know? I'm surprised a boy your age lasted so long. How old are you, thirteen, fourteen? Twelve?"_

_The hot metal presses against his skin and he can't help but whimper, biting down and trying not to cry. The man drags the needle down his arm and across his chest, scraping through the skin, from nipple to nipple and then down again, like a T. He feels it ripping him in half-_

-had been something of a pyromaniac.

The medic is silent, and from the look in her eyes she's never seen worse. But he knew that. He can feel the thick, stiff bandages against his face, the soggy blood that reeks so strongly he would retch if he hadn't gotten used to it weeks ago.

Ibiki can't help but wonder how ugly he is.

'You're beautiful' Hota used to say with that joking smile on her face, she'd pretend she was mocking him but he told her the same thing in that same tone so it didn't matter. They were all just close like that. He could remember being drunk and kissing a drunker Hachi on the lips, a big and sloppy kiss.

His lips had tasted like spiked hot chocolate.

"I'm sorry."

As the nurse speaks Ibiki counts thirty-eight. She was the thirty-eighth person to tell him that in the four days since he'd woken up in the Konoha hospital, the thirty-ninth if-

"_-I'm sorry!" Hota screams in between sobs, shaking her head as the hands grab her shoulders and shove her against the wall again, and they all hear bones break._

_Blood runs down her face, her lids sagging and crusted and scabbed shut._

"_I can't believe I'm always so useless-"_

-Hota counted, but she didn't really. She'd been apologizing to Hachi, had been pleading for her brother's forgiveness even though she'd watched him stop breathing before they'd even taken her eyes away.

"I won't pretend I can even imagine what you went through, but-"

"Don't."

Ibiki surprises even himself as he speaks, it doesn't sound like his voice at all, it's gravely and thick and hoarse from disuse. Forcing his hand to move he grabs hers, and he feels her flinch and try to back away.

"_Please don't hurt him!" She screeches, but already the knife is through his chest and he's staring at her with blurry white eyes, and together they start to sob-_

"_-Please stop…"_

_His voice cracks as he pleads, he can't even feel the shame anymore, just feels the stinging pain and sees the dark eyes in front of him, amused and maliciously gleeful._

"_Stop?" He asks in disbelief, mindlessly playing with the bloody shuriken in his fingers. It was a choice tool of his, the pastime slicing away at his skin in strips so it left what was left red and bleeding and raw._

"_Why would I stop? I'm just getting started…"_

"Please."

.


End file.
